Now before you get all irate.....I truly enjoy living in this arab culture and enjoy the many differences from American culture. But as a family that have spent about 4 months trying to renew residence visas and watching a husband go slightly mad from all the meaningless steps and stamps and changes in rules....we are pretty fed up.
Happy to have visas!!! Don't get me wrong. But they were stamped at the cost of Tom's sanity at this point. He'll recover...he always does but when he flopped on the bed this afternoon after sitting and staring at a man who specifically NOT doing our paperwork out of spite....he was pretty much ready to pack his bags.
If I had no children and all the time in the world, I'd describe EXACTLY what it is like to renew a visa here. Since that is not my reality we'll just move along and you'll have to take my word for it.
Well, I'll give you one example because it is just too crazy. After you get permission to get your visas, you have to get a letter written to the police department that gives them permission to put the stamp in your passport. Tom was at the office that gives out these letters but for some mysterious reason....they weren't doing that on that day. It was suggested that he go to the airport since there is an office there (?). Tom drove all the way across this busy capitol city to the airport only to be told that the office is open only from 8pm to 11pm. Seriously. And that it would cost about $200.
Or
He could drive 5 mins away to another office and get the letter for free while he stood and watched.
Yeah. this is the craziness. There is just no way to make sense out of that.
But back to the original reason for posting this. I LOVE the local newspaper. So many gems of information and humor. This one totally takes the cake for ALL TIME:
This was a report headlined "Locals need to spend time more wisely" (oh how I agree after the day we had today!)
The report also says, "Sleeping and relaxing were the top activities that consumed time, accounting for 41 per cent of the day."
Quoting a data from 2007-08, the HDR says that paid jobs take up 13 per cent of any male's time
See what I mean?!?! This is just wonderfully justifying to see the National newspaper also saying "GET TO WORK!" I want to wave this under the nose of the guy who told us to come back an hour later because he hadn't finished his tea yet. sigh. We were not up for that.
All this negativity will die down soon. I promise (-; Besides....we FINALLY got the visas!!
Happy to have visas!!! Don't get me wrong. But they were stamped at the cost of Tom's sanity at this point. He'll recover...he always does but when he flopped on the bed this afternoon after sitting and staring at a man who specifically NOT doing our paperwork out of spite....he was pretty much ready to pack his bags.
If I had no children and all the time in the world, I'd describe EXACTLY what it is like to renew a visa here. Since that is not my reality we'll just move along and you'll have to take my word for it.
Well, I'll give you one example because it is just too crazy. After you get permission to get your visas, you have to get a letter written to the police department that gives them permission to put the stamp in your passport. Tom was at the office that gives out these letters but for some mysterious reason....they weren't doing that on that day. It was suggested that he go to the airport since there is an office there (?). Tom drove all the way across this busy capitol city to the airport only to be told that the office is open only from 8pm to 11pm. Seriously. And that it would cost about $200.
Or
He could drive 5 mins away to another office and get the letter for free while he stood and watched.
Yeah. this is the craziness. There is just no way to make sense out of that.
But back to the original reason for posting this. I LOVE the local newspaper. So many gems of information and humor. This one totally takes the cake for ALL TIME:
This was a report headlined "Locals need to spend time more wisely" (oh how I agree after the day we had today!)
The report also says, "Sleeping and relaxing were the top activities that consumed time, accounting for 41 per cent of the day."
Quoting a data from 2007-08, the HDR says that paid jobs take up 13 per cent of any male's time
See what I mean?!?! This is just wonderfully justifying to see the National newspaper also saying "GET TO WORK!" I want to wave this under the nose of the guy who told us to come back an hour later because he hadn't finished his tea yet. sigh. We were not up for that.
All this negativity will die down soon. I promise (-; Besides....we FINALLY got the visas!!
No comments:
Post a Comment